Three Square Meals Ch. 035

They stood quietly for a moment, looking at the broken piece of Ashanath equipment, until the silence was broken by Dana.

"We might not have to!" she exclaimed excitedly.

"What do you mean?" John asked her curiously.

"The Psi-shaper is just a tool. It enhances the psychic abilities of an Ashanath engineer, and then lets them manipulate psychically receptive material. In their case they use Etherium, which is an Etherite/Aluminium alloy, and in ours we're shaping Invictium which is an Etherite/Titanium alloy," Dana explained patiently.

"I remember all that from your show-and-tell," John said, smiling at her indulgently.

"Sorry, I forgot you were a good boy and paid attention," Dana grinned at him playfully, and leaned in to give him a kiss.

"So what are you getting at?" Alyssa asked her, looking puzzled.

"Well we're using psionic energy to manipulate an Etherite based material, and the Psi-shaper is just a tool to let a relatively weak Ashanath engineer have enough Psionic strength to do so. You were already getting so strong you practically broke the Psi-shaper in the first place, and the Ashanath confirmed you're way more powerful than any of them. Maybe you just don't need it any more?" Dana suggested excitedly.

"You probably didn't need it in the first place. What do you think, honey, ready for the training wheels to come off?" he asked her encouragingly.

"You're normally the one asking us to be cautious," Alyssa replied, narrowing her eyes at him suspiciously.

John gathered her in his arms, and leaned her back for a soul-searing kiss that left the beautiful blonde breathless. He stared into her eyes as she gazed up at him adoringly, and when he saw that he had her undivided attention, he spoke to her softly, "I've seen how much stronger you're becoming. You're a truly exceptional young woman, Alyssa. Why don't you show me what you can do, and make me proud."

Alyssa's face took on a look of steely determination as she stepped back from John, and turned to face the block of Invictium ore that was sitting untouched on the cargo bay floor. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and then extended her hand out towards the square metallic block, her fingers upraised, as though urging it to lift off the ground. The block of Invictium ore began to glow with a soft pink aura, and when she opened her eyes again, it lifted gently off the ground, drawing a startled gasp from Dana.

Alyssa focused intently on the cube of metal, and it began to lose its hard edges, rolling back in on itself as it turned into a rotating sphere of liquid metal. The glistening black sphere suddenly seemed to pick up a long thin streak of white, that spun lazily in the viscous orb, as though someone had poured in a long stream of white paint. As they watched entranced, the streak of white slowly spread throughout the sphere, the strip growing wider, until it edged out and obliterated all traces of darkness.

As Dana and John looked on in awe, the Invictium responded to her psychokinetic guidance and began to smoothly reshape itself into a long section of armoured hull plating for the Invictus. The fully formed armour plate rotated smoothly in the air, before settling down silently on the ground.

"You were right," Alyssa smiled wryly, "I have outgrown the Psi-shaper."

"That was so awesome!" Dana grinned exuberantly, torn between running over to give her friend a congratulatory hug, and examining the new section of armour plating. The hug option won out, and she embraced her friend, before turning to eagerly look at the newly forged armour with a big grin on her beautiful face.

Alyssa turned to John, and looked up at him expectantly. "Did I make you proud?" she asked him playfully, but there was an underlying yearning in her voice.

"So many times, I've lost count," He said sincerely, as he took her in his arms once more. "But that was truly outstanding."

They kissed, and Alyssa sighed happily as their lips move together passionately. She could feel the depth of his admiration and love for her through their bond, and her heart fluttered as her mind thrilled at his telepathic touch.

"It's perfectly formed!" Dana exclaimed happily, as she looked at the holo-display on her hand held scanner. "There's no bubbling or warping! You did an amazing job, Alyssa."

John and Alyssa separated with one last affectionate smile, and then looked towards the redhead who had skipped over to join them.

"Okay, step back. I'll reshape it again, and form it around your armour," Alyssa said confidently.

"Hang on!" John and Dana said at the same time.

"You go first," Dana said with a grin.

"How difficult did you find that compared to using the Psi-shaper? Any adverse effects afterwards?" he asked the blonde girl with concern.

"No, I feel fine actually. It didn't feel any more difficult than before," Alyssa replied, assuaging his worries.

"Perhaps your increase in psychic power counterbalanced the loss of assistance you were getting from the device?" Dana mused, as she contemplated the lack of a discernible increase in difficulty.

"Maybe," Alyssa said with a shrug. "In any case, that means I should be able to triple shape with no problem," she added eagerly, reaching her hand out towards the glossy white armour plate once again.

"Wait, I haven't had my turn yet!" Dana protested.

"Sorry, go ahead. Why did you want me to stop?" Alyssa laughed.

"Can you leave that armour plate for the Invictus as it is please? The same with the damaged triple shaped black Invictium plating over there," Dana asked, pointing towards the shredded remains of John's Phalanx armour plating.

"Sure, but why?" the blonde asked with a puzzled look on her beautiful face.

"I'd like to run some tests on the triple shaped Invictium, to see how much stronger and reflective it is than the single shaped variety. The same with this new white stuff to see if it's any different. Oh, and why did it change colour, do you think?" Dana asked them both, curiously.

"Maybe it's because you're so pure and innocent?" John teased Alyssa playfully.

"That boat sailed a few months ago, when you hopelessly corrupted me," Alyssa retorted with a grin.

"He is a very naughty Progenitor," Dana agreed, and John laughed loudly, which had both girls grinning.

When his laughter had subsided, Alyssa spoke to him pleasantly, "Could you go and get me another block of Invictium please, handsome, and I'll patch up your armour."

John nodded, and walked over to the ore containers before collecting another cube of Invictium ore. He carried it back comfortably under one arm, and then stopped a few paces from Alyssa and placed it on the ground. She smiled mischievously at him, and then reached her hand out towards the block of ore and focused her will on it. Like before, the block glowed with a gentle pink and then rose in the air, before turning into a liquid. Alyssa let it roll slowly in place as the white streak appeared and then filled the globe, turning it a brilliant glossy white. Once the transformation was complete, the orb began to form into an elongated shape, that eventually became more distinct as the silhouette of a slender, beautiful woman, until it had formed rigidly in place.

Dana laughed at the sight, and then looked disappointed as the shape folded in on itself, turning liquid once more. Alyssa winked at the redhead and then the tumbling orb of Invictium formed itself into the image of a girl's face, the details becoming more clear as it solidified. The image was clearly that of Dana, but it was how she looked in the throes of passion, her eyes closed, and her mouth open as she climaxed.

"I recognise her," John grinned, and Dana flushed slightly in an adorable mix of embarrassment and arousal.

"Put your helmet back on, please," Alyssa requested politely, and John did just that.

With a slight frown of concentration, Alyssa melted the bright white metallic representation of Dana back into a glowing sphere of Invictium. She turned it into long white tendrils that reached out towards John, following the direction of her guiding hand, and they wrapped around and embraced him, forming the outer armour plating of the Phalanx suit.

"Seeing you do that without any assisting devices looks so cool," Dana sighed appreciatively.

"I'm glad you enjoyed the show," Alyssa laughed merrily.

"Is it okay to take this helmet off again?" he asked the girls cautiously.

"Yeah, it looks solid now," Dana agreed, as Alyssa nodded.

"Any adverse effects after that?" John asked Alyssa curiously once he had removed his helmet.

"Nope, I feel fine," she replied with a relaxed smile.

"Do you feel up to re-plating the Raptor?" Dana asked her friend tentatively.

"Sure, I'm up for that," Alyssa said with confidence.

"Let's go then," John smiled, and turned to head to the hangar bay.

"Hold up a second," Dana called to him. "Can you bring a couple of blocks of Invictium ore with you please? We can reshape the damaged pieces, but we'll need some more to plug the gaps."

"Sure, that's no problem," John said, handing the Phalanx armour helmet over to Dana, then strolling over to collect a couple of cubes of ore. He stacked them on top of each other, and then carried them out effortlessly, following after the girls as they walked through to the hangar bay.

They approached the severely damaged gunship, and while John placed the cubes of Invictium ore on the ground, the girls circled the ship, looking over the scarred armour plating.

"I haven't made these kind of plates before. Do you have design schematics for the armour I'll need to create?" Alyssa asked Dana, as she eyed the Raptor speculatively.

"The technical readouts of the Raptor came with the gunship, when the Terran Federation gave it to us. I can upload them to the holo-reader, then you can use that as a guide," Dana suggested helpfully.

"That would be perfect, thanks," Alyssa said appreciatively.

"Okay, can you go and get the holo-reader? It's on the central podium in my workshop, you can't miss it," Dana asked her friend, "I'll upload the instructions from the Raptor's central computer to it."

"And while you two ladies do that, I'll go remove this armour," John said with a smile.

"Catch!" Dana said with a giggle, and threw the Phalanx helmet to him, before she started up the ramp into the Raptor.

John waved them goodbye and re-entered the corridor outside the hangar bay, as he headed to the grav-tube. He stepped inside the glowing blue light, and then rose smoothly and effortlessly all the way up to the top of the ship. When he reached the command deck, he stepped out onto the bridge. He saw that Calara was engrossed in the sector map she was studying, and not wanting to disturb her concentration, he walked down the ramp towards the briefing room. Calara didn't realise he had arrived on the bridge, until she noticed movement out of the corner of her eye, and jumped with a start as he appeared right beside her at her tactical station.

"Oh, honey, I'm sorry!" John apologised, "I didn't mean to scare you."

Calara laughed and placed her hand on her chest, feeling her heart hammer in her chest. "It's ok, there's no need to apologise. I was just totally wrapped up in this analysis," she said with a warm smile.

"Find anything interesting?" he asked her curiously.

"Yes, but first of all, what happened with your armour?" she asked him, as she stood up and ran her hands over the glossy white armour plating. She looked closely, and the light seemed to reflect off it, giving the bright white armour a sparkling finish.

"We broke the Psi-shaper. It seems Alyssa's got too powerful to use it, so she plated this body armour just using her mind," John said, marvelling at what he was saying, himself.

"She's an amazing girl," Calara said with a happy sigh, a wide smile on her face, her sparkling white teeth matching the brilliant gleam of his armour.

"She certainly is," John agreed. "To answer your question though, we've no idea why it changed colour. Perhaps it's something to do with Alyssa manipulating the Invictium directly, instead of using the Psi-shaper, but that's just a wild guess."

"Well you look much less sinister," Calara said approvingly. "But I'm not sure how practical that's going to be, unless you're fighting in the snow," she added with a tinkling laugh.

"Hopefully it'll cut down on the friendly fire incidents," John replied, rolling his eyes. "In any event, Alyssa's going to fix the Raptor now. It's impressive to watch, so you might want to come with me and see her in action, if you're at a good place to stop?"

"I've learnt what I can for now, anyway," Calara replied with an exasperated sigh. "If I had full access to Terran Federation fleet movements, and an audit log of orders in the Dragon March, I would have finished ages ago. Unfortunately everything is locked up tight, high security clearance only."

"What have you found out so far?" John asked, intrigued.

"I can't verify this for certain until I have full access to the secured data, but it definitely looks like there's a traitor in the Terran Federation, and high up in the Chain of Command," Calara said grimly.

"I was bracing myself for this, as soon as you mentioned you had your suspicions. After seeing your mind at work, I trust your hunches as though it was a definitive report by a team of top analysts," John told her proudly.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," she said gratefully, looking up at him with her big brown eyes.

"It's well earned. You're quite brilliant, did you know that?" he asked her rhetorically, holding her in his arms and leaning in to give her a kiss. He stopped for a moment, looking down at his full body armour with a self-conscious grin.

"It's fine, I like it. You look like a heroic knight from some chivalrous tale," Calara grinned back at him.

"Would the fair maiden bestow on me the great honour of a kiss?" he asked her gallantly.

Calara threw her arms around his neck and kissed him fiercely, sighing into his mouth as he held her protectively in his arms.

"You're making all my childhood dreams come true," she said with delight. "Rescued by a heroic knight!"

"Maybe that's one to roleplay later?" John laughed.

Calara bit her bottom lip, and stared at him lustily. "This is going to be the longest two weeks of my life!" she groaned with frustration.

"Don't worry," he told her soothingly, "Perhaps you can help me feed Rachel at some point, too?"

The Latina writhed excitedly in his grasp, looking even more turned on, then looked at him curiously. "Too?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Jade volunteered her services earlier," John grinned, which had Calara laughing merrily.

"She's such a helpful girl," she said affectionately. "Okay, enough teasing for now! I don't think I can handle any more. I'll be tearing that armour off you in a minute, and that would be a shame after Alyssa made it look so nice."

John nodded and went into the briefing room, removing his armour in a few seconds with the aid of the robotic arms on the equipping frame. He strode out to rejoin Calara, who was waiting for him at the tactical station. He took her hand and was about to walk with her up the ramp to the grav-tube when she stopped him.

"You'll need to be very careful when we're back at Olympus," she warned him forebodingly. "Until we can identify who the traitor, or even traitors are, everyone will be under suspicion."

"You can't mean, -" John began, before she interrupted him.

"Yes, even Charles too. I know he's an old friend, but we can't afford to take any chances," she advised him gently.

John's face twisted up in a grimace as he pondered the idea of his old Commanding officer, Vice Admiral Charles Harris, being a traitor. One glance at Calara calmed his mind however, and he nodded acceptingly.

"I trust you with my life," he told her adamantly. "If someone as gifted as you advises caution, I'd be a fool to ignore it."

Calara looked ambivalent for a moment and was about to say something, but remained quiet, as she looked up at him appreciatively.

"What were you about to say?" he asked her curiously. "You know you can always tell me anything."

"I was going to warn you; if you make any more comments like that, Rachel's going to miss out on dinner! But it seemed horribly inappropriate considering the topic at hand," she admitted with a rueful smile.

"We better get going then," John said with a chuckle, "If we stay up here alone, I'm not going to be able to stop complimenting you."

"Lead on, Ser Knight," Calara said with a grin, and they stepped into the grav-tube hand in hand.

When they walked out into the hangar bay, Dana was holding up the holo-reader and Alyssa was leaning over, carefully examining the technical specifications of the armour plating.

"Hey guys!" Dana called out to John and Calara as they walked over to join the two girls.

"I'm nearly done," Alyssa said distractedly, as she flicked through the images of the various sections of armour plating that were appearing in the holographic display.

"Did you find out anything with your analysis?" Dana asked Calara curiously.

"Yes, but if it's okay with you, I'll go through it with everyone later when Rachel wakes up. It'll save me repeating myself," the brunette said apologetically.

"Sure, I don't mind waiting," Dana replied with an easy going smile.

"Okay, done!" Alyssa exclaimed with a relieved smile, as she scanned through the last image.

"Have you got enough Invictium ore?" John asked her proactively.

"Yes, that should be plenty, thanks. Step back everyone, please," she cautioned them.

"Do you still need the holo-reader?" Dana asked her tentatively.

"No, I've committed all the images to memory," Alyssa replied confidently, as she turned towards the Raptor.

She held out her left hand towards the blocks of Invictium ore, and they glowed an ethereal pink before lifting off the floor, and melting together almost instantly into a large liquid orb. She waited patiently for the white streaks to appear, and then when they did, they enveloped the sphere completely. As soon as they were done, she formed the liquid Invictium into an image of John's smiling face.

"Just matching it up with the current armour; single shaped," Alyssa remarked with a grin, before she dissolved the image into liquid form once more.

The Invictium sphere revolved lazily in the air as she held her left hand upraised, as though supporting it with her fingertips. She then turned her attention back to the gunship, and reached out with her right hand towards the front armour plating around the cockpit. Making a beckoning motion with her fingers, the black metal dissolved fluidly, and streamed through the air into a smaller orb, rotating as if in orbit around the first. Once the lines of white had appeared and overcome the black completely, she began to funnel a tiny stream of liquid metal from the bigger globe to the smaller one, providing enough mass to replace that which had been destroyed.

"That should be enough to fill in the bits that were missing. I'm only going to double shape the gunship's armour for the moment, just in case I start to get tired," she explained, before unfurling the fingers of her right hand, and sending streams of flowing white Invictium back to encase the hull of the Raptor.

Alyssa walked slowly around the gunship, and repeated the process, replacing each piece of tattered armour on the various armoured sections of the hull. Gradually the ball of white Invictium she held in place with her left hand grew smaller and smaller, as she used it to replace the missing pieces of damaged armour plating. Once she had completed a full rotation of the vessel, having repaired all of the gunship's armour, the ball of liquid white Invictium was tiny, no bigger than a fist. She split it in half by making a grabbing motion with her right hand, so she had two small spheres rotating in front of her. The one on the left she flattened out and then shaped into a tiny representation of Dana's smiling face, which she floated over to the redhead, and dropped neatly into her upraised palm.